Community Survey

Friends, Comrades, Fellow Activists:

The Bay Area Radical Mental Health Collective is a grassroots group of political activists, who see an urgent need for addressing emotional and mental crises in the radical left community. Activists are particularly vulnerable to trauma at the hands of the state, which too frequently leads to individual burn-out and fragmentation of the community. We are committed to helping empower people to negotiate the sustainability of their activism, and encouraging mutual and community-based support, grounded in compassionate solidarity, rather than paternalistic intervention. Our goal is to open discussion about alternatives to the current “mental health” system, to provide resources, and to inspire dialogue about unconventional states of consciousness and psychological wellbeing. Many of us have been or are “clients” of the “mental health” system, some more willingly than others, and in that context some of us have been “diagnosed” with psychiatric labels. As a collective we hold different opinions about the validity of those diagnoses, and about the diversity of our states of minds, but we are firmly united in the belief that the system that claims to care for people labeled “mentally ill” is in need of revolutionary change.

We are distributing this survey to find out how organizations in the East Bay perceive the type of work we do, and what our friends and comrades need and expect from us. We also believe that building a radical support network means creating alliances with other community groups, and we are especially interested in learning how our various activism relates to each other and overlaps, in hopes of discovering projects we could collaborate or support each other with.

Thank you for taking the time to work on this survey. Please write as much or as little as you feel inspired to. We are grateful for your input and want to affirm that answering all questions is optional, and that any personal information will be kept confidential within our collective. Feel free to forward this survey to other groups or activists who you think would be interested. Please return completed surveys to bayarearadicalmentalhealth@lists.riseup.net or to Bay Area Radical Mental Health Collective c/o the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705

In solidarity,
The Bay Area Radical Mental Health Collective

Community Survey

1 – Do you consider yourself an activist? Radical? What are the political issues you or your group are focused on or working on?

2 – Do you see emotional and mental wellbeing as a political issue? If so, how so? If not, why not?

3 – How would you define “mental health”? What about “radical mental health”? Are there any other words you think would more accurately describe so-called “mental health”?

4 – Do you trust psychiatrists? How about psychologists, or other therapists? Why or why not?

5 – Have you or someone you know ever been institutionalized? Taken psychiatric medications? Diagnosed with a psychiatric label? Seen a therapist or counselor of any sort?

6 – What sorts of stigmas around “mental illness” or “extreme” states of consciousness come up in your community and/or your activist work?

7 – Do you think that you or your community need to have access to a “radical mental health” group? Why?

8 – What would you expect from an organization such as ours? What would you like to see the BARMH Collective do?

9 – Have you attended any of our events? Which one/s – free skool class(es), café night(s), support group, other events we participated in?

10 – Did you get anything positive out of your interaction with us? What? Were you inspired to come back to other events of ours, or similar events by others, or into action in your own life?

11 – Did you have any negative experiences with us? What were they? Did they keep you from coming back to our events? Is there anything we could have done at the time, or we can do now to prevent them from happening again?

12 – Are there any particular things/events/discussions/types of support that we could provide that would be helpful to you personally? Collectively? What are they?

13 – Do you have suggestions for other groups we should contact? How do you think our work is related to theirs?

14 – Where did you come across this questionaire? How did you feel about it?

15 – Is there anything else that you want to tell us? Would you like to identify yourself so we can contact you for further discussion, or for any other reason?

What the Hell is “Radical Mental Health”?
You Tell Us.

1 – Do you consider yourself an activist? Radical? What are the political issues you or your group are focused on or working on?

2 – Do you see emotional and mental wellbeing as a political issue? If so, how so? If not, why not?